


a covenant of salt

by museaway



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, Fanart, First Kiss, First Time, Holidays, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, on the road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 20:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5512037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museaway/pseuds/museaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn’t put up a tree on Cas’s first Christmas in the bunker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a covenant of salt

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally for an advent calendar, but there was a mixup and I didn’t make the schedule. But here it is anyway! Set at a vague point diverged from early S11 & assumes The Darkness arc is settled and over. I wrote this in October, so it doesn't reference canon past 11.05. There is nonexplicit bottom!Dean in one scene.
> 
> Beta read by whelvenwings and andthestarsaregone.

They didn’t put up a tree on Cas’s first Christmas in the bunker. Sam lit a couple mismatched candles and streamed holiday music on his phone. Dean cracked open three beers and hung a plastic motel key fob from a dying plant Sam had been nursing beside the kitchen sink. He set it in the center of the war room table.

“Merry Christmas.”

He tapped his beer against Cas’s and drank half the bottle with his eyes closed, firm hand on the back of Cas’s chair. He tossed Sam an Amazon gift card, and a Walmart card to Cas. “In case you’re tired of the suit,” he said.

He might’ve just offered Cas the moon, the way his face brightened. Cas folded his hands around the card and exhaled quietly, smiling with a closed mouth.

“Thank you,” Cas said, “for letting me share this with you.”

“Of course,” Sam said. He handed Dean a gift card to AutoZone and, with a sheepish look, slid Cas a brown paper gift bag. Cas plucked out the tissue paper. He narrowed his eyes and pulled out a die-cast 1978 Continental Mark V. Traced a finger across the hood.

“You said it was crappy.”

Sam grinned. “I know you liked it.”

“Sam’s a hypocrite,” Dean said. “Did he tell you he practically had the same car a few years ago?” When Cas chuckled, Dean relaxed and let his arm slip behind Cas’s shoulders, resting along the back of the chair. Cas settled into it. He set the gift card beside the model car and picked up his beer.

They drank until the candles burned low and wax drooled onto the table to cool in opaque lumps. Sam excused himself around eleven, but Dean and Cas sat up until close to midnight. Dean’s eyes grew heavy, mouth stale from too much beer, but it had relaxed him properly for the first time since the Darkness had rolled over him and Sam in the Impala—thank God that was finally behind them. Cas slumped against his side, humming _Silent Night_.

“Why a motel key?” Cas asked, motioning to the potted plant.

“Seems fitting, given the way we live. Can you imagine some Martha Stewart tree in here?”

“Hm,” Cas said, considering. “I suppose not.”

They left the bottles on the table for morning and did an awkward shuffle outside of Cas’s room, trying to say goodnight.

“I'll, uh. See you in the morning,” Dean said, hugging him with one arm. That was safe. He let himself touch Cas a lot lately. Cas swayed into him, so Dean gave him a quick squeeze with both arms, meaning to let go, but Cas pressed his cheek to Dean’s and spoke.

“Can we stop pretending that we don't want this?”

Dean didn’t have to ask what he meant. It had been forefront in his mind since his conversation with Sam outside the Roadhouse all those months ago, since “home” wasn’t just a car anymore but an angel waiting for him in Lebanon.

He pushed a trembling hand into Cas’s hair—softer than Dean had imagined it would be. He curled his fingers into it and swallowed thickly.

“Cas, this scares the hell outta me.”

If he let himself have this and he lost Cas, he didn’t know what he’d do. What he’d be or become. Having less to lose had always seemed the better option, especially when he wasn’t sure if Cas would stay or go, choose Dean or return to Heaven. Find another mission. But the way he was looking at Dean just now, with a soppy expression that made Dean’s heart ache, there was no way he would deny Cas anything. Not even if it meant Dean was ruined for anyone else for the rest of his life.

Cas kissed him with a die-cast car between them, and led Dean into his room.

When Dean woke up on December 26th, nothing had changed except for the presence of a small gold car on Cas’s nightstand and Dean in Cas’s bed, shirtless. An arm over his waist and one of Cas’s legs between his knees. Dean ran his fingers lightly up and down Cas’s arm, waiting for the inevitable panic to set in, but it never came.

Cas smiled when Dean rolled over and rubbed his eyes.

“Hey,” Dean said and didn’t panic, not when Cas took him fully in his arms, not when he pressed his mouth to Dean’s in a lazy kiss.

“I like watching you wake up.”

It made Dean’s chest go tight, hearing Cas say that. He kissed Cas hard, even though he knew his breath was stale and there were probably pillow lines on his face, while Cas didn’t have a hair out of place. But Cas held him and kissed him back just as deeply.

Dean wanted this, wanted to wake up to Cas watching him every morning from now on. “Yeah?” he said.

Cas kept kissing him, caressing Dean’s face with his hands, Dean’s name slipping out like praise, and only stopped when Sam knocked on the door.

“Hey, Cas, you up?”

Dean didn’t breathe for a few seconds. There was no going back from this, no writing it off as a one-night stand. Not Cas, who looked at him and raised both eyebrows in question, giving him an obvious out. The option to stay silent. Cas’s expression was calm, but Dean could see the hurt circling, waiting for Dean’s rejection.

He kissed Cas’s palm. Nodded into it.

“Yes, we’re up,” Cas called to Sam, face soft, eyes fixed on Dean. He leaned in and rubbed their cheeks together. “We’ll be out in a minute.”

“Oh—okay.” Dean could hear the surprise in Sam’s voice, noticeably higher when he said, “Uh, I’ll start the coffee.”

Sam didn’t say anything in the kitchen a few minutes later, just caught Dean’s eye and smiled, and that was alright. Cas kept a steadying hand on Dean’s back, between his shoulder blades, at the table over coffee—and that was alright too. The coffee was hot and strong. Dean felt grounded for the first time in years. He emptied his cup with a hand on Cas’s thigh—it was thick. Muscular. Covered in fine hair. He liked the heft of it under his palm. He liked the way Cas blushed when Dean stroked the edge of his knee.

“I found a case.” Sam tapped a notebook filled with his chicken scratch. Dean made out the words “unexplained animal deaths” and “drained of blood,” so after a quick wash-up, they hit the road.

#

Cas started out in the back seat with the laptop and met Dean’s eye in the rear-view mirror every quarter mile. They’d done this before. He’d watched Cas so many times, giddy over him rumpled and pissed-off in the back of his car, but this was different. He didn’t have to wonder anymore. He knew, when he stopped the car, that he could lean over the seat and catch Cas’s mouth. That they could sit on the same side of a diner booth without it being weird, and stop pretending a cot was just as comfortable as a bed when they booked a motel for the night.

“If Cas wants to sit up front, I wouldn’t mind the leg room,” Sam said when they stopped to fuel up, rubbing his neck. Dean caught the edge of a grin when Sam looked away. He drove the next fifty-some miles with a hand on Cas’s knee, his little brother snoozing in the back.

#

The drive from Lebanon took ten hours. They checked into a Budget Inn and decided on dinner and a good night’s sleep. Farmers went to bed early, and if this was a chupacabra, it’d be in the area as long as there was livestock to feed on. No need to rush. They’d conduct interviews first thing in the morning.

The front desk recommended a steakhouse not far away, so they opted for a post-holiday holiday meal. Dean splurged with a chicken fried steak and stole half of Cas’s bread pudding. It wasn’t pie, but it wasn’t half bad.

Sam had booked a room with two beds, even though Dean offered to get him and Cas their own room, but Sam laughed it off and said he was pretty sure Cas knew how to keep his hands to himself. Still, Dean felt awkward getting undressed. Getting into a bed with Cas, with his brother in the room, even though he was in boxers and a shirt and Cas hadn’t even taken off his suit. But Sam powered up his laptop, relaxed into his own bed, and searched for any new attacks in the last twenty-four hours. Cas switched on a lamp and opened a paperback book he’d borrowed from the hotel lobby.

Dean had never done this, not with Sam in the room and never on a case. He wasn’t sure what to do. What did normal people do? But leaning against Cas, watching the end of a movie he’d seen fifty times, that felt okay. So did the brush of Cas’s fingers under Dean’s t-shirt, the way Cas said “Goodnight, Sam” like always. His lips, gentle against Dean’s before he fell under.

  
_art by_  [impalartsociopath](http://impalartsociopath.tumblr.com/)

He woke up to those same lips teasing him awake, kissing his mouth and the bolt of his jaw, behind his ear, whispering, “Good morning.” Dean smiled against them, buzzing with a quiet contentment.

“Did you watch me sleep?”

“Not all night,” Cas said. He tapped the book cover and set it on the nightstand.

“Any good?”

“Not really. I’m glad you’re awake.” He kissed Dean until Sam yawned and stretched, oblivious, in the other bed. Sam got up, pulled on jeans and sunglasses, and stumbled for his keys.

“Back in twenty,” he said. He threw a wadded-up t-shirt at Dean. “Get up, Romeo.”

The door closed. Dean groaned and rolled onto his side, burying his face in Cas’s dress shirt. Cas ran a soothing hand over Dean’s hair.

“Sam’s right. You need to get up.”

“Oh, I’m up.” Dean rubbed his morning wood against Cas’s thigh.

“Dean,” Cas said, weakly pushing him away although his voice had gone thick.

“Just five minutes?” Dean untucked Cas’s shirt and pressed against him, but Cas caught his hands. Brought them to his mouth and kissed them.

“Shower.”

Cas brushed his teeth while Dean lathered up, and handed him a towel when he shut off the water. Dean kissed him against the bathroom door until Sam pounded on it.

“I brought coffee. Now get out of there.”

They made the most of Sam’s shower time. Cas must’ve picked up a thing or two from his Netflix addiction, because he took pity on Dean and sunk to the floor next to the bed. Blew him in record time, reducing him to whimpers before the water shut off. They kissed while Dean put on clean boxers and buttoned his dress shirt and across the round table beneath the window. Before getting out of the car for the first interview in matching Feds getups, Cas squeezed his hand, then strode to the door like a pro. Dean and Sam trailed behind, and let him take the lead.

“I’m Agent Fox,” Cas told the farmer when she opened her front door an inch to verify their IDs. “These are Agents Lloyd and Glover. We have a few questions about the animal deaths you reported.”

Dean fought to keep the pride off of his face in front of the farmer during Cas’s interrogation, but he kissed the hell out of him forty minutes later in the back seat.

#

A chupacabra would’ve been a cinch; the vamp nest they discovered on the edge of Coleman, on the other hand, was not. The vamps’ modified clothing and cars let them escape in the daylight without a burn, but it was an easy chase, easy to surround the car once Sam shot the tires out.

“Monster,” a vampire spat when Sam beheaded his mate. He closed his eyes when Dean raised his blade. Accepted death. _Vampires mate for life._

They burned the remains and left the car on the side of the road for the local authorities to clean up. Sam voted to stay the night in Texas, head back in the morning, but Cas offered to drive. Dean, weary from the day and oddly shaken, agreed.

“You ever wonder what we’re doing?” he asked five hours into the trip, Sam asleep in the back. The car reeked of blood and fast food—burgers from the soda fountain in town. Cas’s treat. Their clothes were ruined. Cas drove without the radio on.

“Vampires are evil,” he said.

Dean shrugged and attempted to sleep. His thoughts stayed close to the surface, but he still dreamed, sinking into it, his breaths lengthening. Sam’s knife flashed. The vampire screamed and Dean watched its body and head fall separately to the ground. The head rolled away, revealing Cas’s face. Lifeless eyes.

Dean startled upright.

“Don’t think about that,” Cas said. He stretched out his arm and invited Dean to sit closer. Dean slid over to lean against Cas’s shoulder instead of the glass.

“You sneaking into my dreams again?” he said into Cas’s coat.

Cas chuckled and checked the rearview mirror. “Only when you direct them at me.” He kissed Dean’s forehead, the last of the dream chased by a tingling in his skin, the particular chill of angel grace.

#

Cas wanted to use his gift card for supplies, but Sam told him he should get something for himself and sent them on a road trip.

“I don’t need anything,” Cas said, staring down a row of men’s jeans. Dean huffed.

“Then why do you keep stealing my clothes?”

“Affection,” Cas said, which made Dean blush under the harsh florescent lights. “They smell like you.”

At Dean’s insistence, he picked out a couple shirts from the clearance rack, three pairs of dark-washed jeans, gray sweatpants. Dean didn’t maul Cas in the dressing room when he made sure everything fit, but he did loop a red plaid scarf around his neck.

“Now you look like a Winchester,” he said, grinning, and dropped his hands when he remembered they were in public, in Kansas, and he wasn’t in the mood for a fight with a bigoted stranger.

Cas touched the scarf and nodded and paid for everything with his gift card. He paid the overage with a few dollars from his pocket that he’d folded and secured with a paperclip.

“May I keep that?” Cas asked when the cashier lay the card aside.

“It’s empty,” she said with a blank look but handed it back and wished them a good rest of the day.  

#

Cas wore the scarf well into the spring, then hung it next to Dean’s leather jacket. He left it behind when they headed to Tennessee. He often raised a hand to his throat out of habit, sighing when his fingers met his overcoat. At first, Dean thought there was something wrong with him again; maybe Rowena hadn’t actually lifted the attack dog spell. What if it had been dormant and was resurfacing? He offered Cas a blanket they kept in the trunk.

“I’m not cold,” Cas said, flipping through Dean’s tapes. He selected Journey.

“Seriously?” Sam asked from the back seat.

“Listen, Hanson.” Dean pointed at him through the rear-view mirror. “How many times did dad and I put up with that mmm-bop crap you used to like?”

“I was twelve. And you knew all the words.”

Dean kept the volume cranked to drown out further commentary and reached over, intent on patting Cas’s leg, but he caught Dean’s hand and didn’t reach for the scarf the rest of the ride.

It took twelve hours to get to Adams. Dean’s ass and legs were numb when he got out of the car in the parking lot of a Super 8. He hoped the room had an iron so he could get his creases sharp. Cas could do it with his mojo, but Dean liked the routine of ironing: calm before the shit show.

They’d thought reports of increased activity in the Bell Witch Cave might have been an after-effect of the Darkness—maybe it had stirred up an old poltergeist—but a hike through the cave with an EMF meter turned up nothing but a couple decent shots of the orange flowstone.

They snuck back in at night, flashlights in hand, stomachs full of brisket, and sat shivering on the cave floor for an hour. Two. Nothing. No EMF spikes, no voices, no visual phenomenon, just the steady drip of water, scurry of animals Dean couldn't see.

“Cas, you sense anything at all?” Sam asked.

“It’s very faint. It’s not a poltergeist. Definitely not a human spirit.”

Dean tapped the EMF detector. “This thing hasn’t blipped since we sat down. Let’s get out of here,” Dean said, so they called it a night.

Cas held him until past two, after Sam had gone to bed and the only thing on was infomercials.

“Are you happy?” Dean asked when they’d switched off the TV and the lights. The heater rattled under the window, mattress squeaking under Cas’s weight as he shifted to face Dean fully.

“Of course,” he said without hesitation. “Are you?”

#

Activity was at a high when they returned to the cave the next morning and Sam spotted an attendant in the gift shop muttering to herself. Twenty-one years old, just graduated from college, with a hex bag in her purse and a pentagram charm bracelet. The cave had a witch, alright, but not the one in the legend. Sarah was an amateur using her fledgling skills to gain attention for the cave, put it back on the map.

“Those ghost shows are killing us,” she said. “Visitors aren’t satisfied unless they’re scared. I’m giving them what they want.”

Since she wasn’t harming anyone and Sam mentioned the increased tourism must have been a boon for the town, Dean let her go with a warning.

“Don’t give me a reason to come back here.”

It was worth having a couple witches on his side in case he needed to call in a favor. She gave them each a free pass to visit the cave on a future trip, and Cas picked out an acrylic key chain. It said “Bell Witch Cave” in red letters.

“Do you even have a key to put on that?” Dean asked. Cas fiddled with the key chain against his thigh.

“When I get my car back,” Cas said hopefully, though they both knew the chance of that was poor. Even if they recovered it, who knew what condition Metatron had left it in. Had Cas ever given it an oil change? Dean had never rebuilt a Lincoln, but he supposed if they did manage to locate the Continental, he’d know that car as well as the Impala, inside and out.

#

Early July on the drive to Idaho, to investigate a series of unexplained disappearances—soul harvesting?—they passed a massive yard sale: table after table strewn with someone's second-hand crap. Of course, Cas asked to pull over.

They’d been on the road for two days, hadn’t been home to the bunker in weeks because of back-to-back cases in North Carolina and New Jersey. Cas had talked nonstop since they crossed the Mississippi and Sam’s breathing was starting to get on Dean's nerves. A break sounded fantastic. He parked on the edge of someone’s lawn and threw the car into park, content to stretch his legs and let Cas chew someone else’s ear for a while.

It was hot out, the sun unrelenting. Cloudless sky. They were all down to short sleeves. Cas had on jeans and boots and walked away with his hands in his back pockets. He stopped at the first table he came to and picked up item after item, asking the seller about each one. Well, they'd be a while. Dean took a beer from the cooler and sat on Baby’s hood.

Sam found a book dealer and haggled over a few hardcovers.

“There’s a couple jewelers,” he said, putting them in the back seat, “in case you wanna look at...something.”

There was that word again. Dean bristled. “Thought you didn’t think I was the marriage type,” he said. Sam sucked on his teeth and shrugged.

“I assumed you were allergic to it.”

“Yeah? Well, I assume that you’re an assumer,” Dean said, which made no sense, so he took his wallet and stalked off before Sam called him out on it.

Most tables offered junk: cranberry colored glassware, tumblers with gold trim. A complete set of chipped mixing bowls like the ones his parents had owned. He gave the jewelry spreads a wide berth but found a sterling money clip. He bought it for Cas, who was squinting at a table of Christmas ornaments. He held a plastic angel tree-topper missing its left wing, the right one cracked.

“Whatcha got there?” Dean asked. Cas nudged his thumb along the jagged edge where the wing had once been. He shrugged.

“I like this.”

“It’s broken. The hell are you planning to do with it?” Dean said, but Cas didn’t put it down.

“How much?” he asked the woman sitting behind the table. Fifty cents, she said, so Cas gave her a dollar bill. He walked with the angel back to the car.

#

For a few months, the thing between them was uncomplicated. Easy. Dean didn’t have to explain why he was snappish after a hunt or come up with a plausible explanation for his blood-soaked clothes. The flash of the money clip in Cas's hands made him soar.

Most of the time they didn’t talk at all, but limped back to the motel and took turns showering. Sometimes they showered together. Sometimes Cas patched him and Sam both up; sometimes Dean refused to let him help, like when a case went bad. Those days were the hard ones because Cas looked disappointed, eyes a bit wild. Frightened, like Dean was seconds from ordering him back to a family Castiel no longer had. He felt like a jackass for putting that look on Cas’s face, but Cas had chosen this. He'd known what he was getting into when he'd pulled Dean into his room.

The first time they went to bed angry, Dean thought it was over between them, this thing without a name. Despite his exhaustion, the weariness in his limbs, his mind refused to settle. Was Cas asleep? The motel bed squeaked every time one of them moved. They lay infuriatingly close, but Cas didn’t touch him. Had his back to Dean and sighed every few minutes. Dean readjusted his pillow and turned onto his side, his back, his stomach, until he got up and sat at the window tracing the condensation. Eight months. It’d only taken eight months to ruin the only good thing to happen to him in years. That ought to be worth a medal.

He didn’t cry, even though his throat was tight. He almost wished he would. He sat in that chair until he was so cold he shook, not unlike another gray, damp place where he slept too far from Castiel. Cas had come to him then, too, just as he came tonight: slowly, without a word. Wrapped his arms around Dean the way he had in the forest. They made up quietly, apologized with lips and hands.

Cas whispered his name. “Tell me you need me.”

“I need you. I need you, Cas.”

Dean called him sweet things in the dark, rocked against him, and they broke together, coasting down from the high with sweat-slick fingers interlocked. They stayed wrapped together until morning. Sam slept through it all or did a good job faking.

It was far from their first fight. It wouldn’t be their last, but they’d get better at this part, patching things up after, even if Cas was a moron for getting between Dean and a demon, and Cas would always think Dean took too many risks with his life. Few people had ever cared enough to be furious with him.

He let Cas patch up a gash in his cheek at breakfast, peck him on the lips before the waitress came over with coffee. Sam slid his cup to the edge of the table, yawning into his sleeve. He avoided Dean’s gaze. Maybe last night had been an Oscar-worthy performance on Sam’s part, after all.

#

Cas said he loved Dean for the first time over pancakes in a seven-table diner in New Hampshire. He wore the red scarf again, now that the weather had cooled. Sam paced in the parking lot on his phone.

“Um,” Dean said in response to Cas's declaration, cheeks five-alarm hot. “Okay?”

Leaves surfed from the treetops, twirling before they settled on the Impala. He stared dazedly at the dappled sunlight on the ground outside.

Cas pushed him a shaker of salt with a patient expression.

“What is this?” Dean asked.

“Salt.”

“I know it’s salt, genius. Why are you handing it to me?”

“Salt is a symbol of permanence.”

“No shit.”

“Dean.” Cas reached across the table for his hand. Dean sputtered but didn’t pull it back, neck pricking with an embarrassed flush. “I’m not human. I’m not able to grow old with you. But I want to be with you as long as you’ll have me.”

Dean looked at the salt shaker. He looked to Sam, who’d stood up abruptly once he’d finished eating, now that Dean thought about it, and announced he had to call Jody. Like it had been urgent, but Dean called bullshit. He smelled a setup. Sam glanced to the window where Dean and Cas sat. He squinted, then shook his head, as though he were reporting on what he saw.

“Hang on,” Dean said, looking back to Cas with wide eyes. He lowered his voice, heart hammering. “Is this...are you proposing?”

Cas nodded, looking awfully smug about it.

“Most people get down on one knee,” Dean muttered.

“I still can,” Cas said, though his voice was playful. He made no move to get up. “Would you have said yes?”

Dean looked at him for a long time.

“You know there’s no way we can really do this, right? You don’t have a birth certificate. I’m legally dead.”

“I don’t care about that.” Cas ran his thumb over Dean’s knuckles. “When two people give themselves to one another, that’s enough.”

Dean tongued a rough spot inside his cheek and looked outside in time to see Sam laughing. It was a few minutes before he could speak.

“Jody’ll want to be there,” he said, surprised by the emotion in his own voice. He swiped a jacket sleeve across his eyes and shrugged. “Maybe Sammy can arrange something.”

#

They got hitched in Sioux Falls, a quick ceremony that made Dean choke up more than he’d like to admit. Sam openly cried. Alex was at a friend’s house for the weekend, but Donna drove over from Minnesota for the day, and they all got drunk in Jody’s living room. Dean kept an arm around Cas’s shoulders, nuzzling closer with each round. Unwilling to let go. When Claire came home from work, she rolled her eyes to see Dean practically sitting on Cas's lap, but she hugged them both. No one said a word when she nicked a beer and joined them on the floor.

“I’m taking your keys,” Jody said.

“Whatever.” Claire smirked. Dean took it as a blessing.

The honeymoon was Sam’s idea, a week on Green Lake in Minnesota, just three hours from Jody’s house. He gave them the information over breakfast and said, "No arguing." Sam had booked it online and said he’d stay in South Dakota with Jody while they celebrated. They’d kicked around the idea of a camping trip next summer, or maybe Nashville. Vegas. A few days at the beach. But it was too cold to swim this time of year, and Dean wasn’t up for crowds. A week with no interruptions sounded just peachy.

Jody gave them extra sheets, and they bought enough food and beer to last a month. Holed up together in a two-story lakefront cabin, they sat on the dock in plastic chairs the first afternoon, and watched the stars’ reflection on the lake after sunset. In front of a crackling fire, Cas touched Dean with reverent hands on the living room floor, carefully mapping Dean’s skin. Cas laid him out on his back and kissed him, touched him intimately until Dean was keening. Begging for him. Dean burned with Cas inside him for the first time, murmuring nonsense into his neck, legs wrapped around Cas’s waist, and he was happy.  

Happy how sore he was the next day, happy to let Cas dote on him—bring him coffee on the red leather sofa, kiss each bruise he’d left on Dean’s thighs, suck him off gently before they went outside to sit in the sun.

That night in bed, Dean kissed the marks he’d left on Cas’s neck. On his husband’s neck. Who would’ve thought.

#

Wraiths in Nebraska, a vengeful water spirit in Arkansas, werewolves outside New Orleans—they took the cases. They got the jobs done.

Cas rode shotgun as often as Sam. Sometimes they went to bed not speaking because Cas was furious with Dean for being reckless, or because Cas had used himself as a moving target, but they still kissed goodnight and held each other until morning.

The night before Christmas, they stuck a pine tree in the war room. Sam voted for artificial, citing practicality and easy clean-up, but Dean won out on a Douglas fir they decorated over a case of beer. They got one on the ride home from a case in Colorado and strung it with a set of inexpensive red ornaments Sam had picked out, and garland Cas fashioned out of ruined plaid shirts. The fresh pine scent wound through the bunker. From a few feet away, the plastic ornaments didn’t look any different than glass and the plaid garland could’ve been something out of a catalog.

Cas went to their room and came back with a small box. He tilted the lid open and removed a year of memories from the road. One by one, he found homes for them on the tree. Dean looped an arm around Cas's waist and kissed his hair, admiring his collection: his eyes fell on an ornament that said “Coleman, Texas” and a Bell Witch keychain from Tennessee. A glittery lighthouse from the Jersey Shore. Shaker of salt from the diner in New Hampshire. A rock Cas had picked up along Green Lake.

And near the top, a die-cast ‘78 Continental Mark V sat nestled among the branches, along with the plastic motel key fob from their first Christmas, an empty Walmart gift card, an angel with broken wings.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas to those who celebrate & a very happy new year to everyone ♥
> 
> Pics of the cabin and a couple locations from the fic are [on pinterest](https://www.pinterest.com/museaway/spn-ornaments/) and here is [the fic post on tumblr](http://www.museaway.com/post/135861470120/a-covenant-of-salt-they-didnt-put-up-a-tree-on) if you want to see the photo set.
> 
> If you're on Twitter, please [come say hi](https://twitter.com/museawayfic)!


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